United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 02-1571, 03-1262
MICHAEL J. O'CONNELL and ROXANNE O'CONNELL,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HYATT HOTELS OF PUERTO RICO
and DORADO BEACH HOTEL CORPORATION,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. José Antonio Fusté, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Lynch and Howard,
Circuit Judges.
Neil Hoffman with whom Fredric S. Karpf and Law Offices of
Neil Hoffman, were on brief, for appellants.
Jeannette Lopez De Victoria with whom Pinto-Lugo, Oliveras &
Ortiz, P.S.C., was on brief, for appellees.
February 12, 2004
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs Michael and Roxanne
O'Connell appeal from the district court's denial of their motion
to amend the complaint. We affirm.
This lawsuit arises out of a slip-and-fall accident that
occurred at the Hyatt Regency Cerromar Beach Resort and Casino in
Dorado, Puerto Rico on November 12, 1997. Plaintiffs, who are
citizens of Pennsylvania, filed this action in the Pennsylvania
state court on November 9, 1999. The complaint originally named as
defendants Hyatt Corporation, Hyatt International Corporation,
Hyatt Hotels Corporation, and H. Group Holding, Inc. (the "original
defendants").
On December 28, 1999, the original defendants invoked the
federal courts' diversity jurisdiction to remove this case to the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441. Several months later, on
March 7, 2000, the parties filed a stipulation to (1) dismiss the
original defendants from the action, (2) amend the caption of the
complaint to name Hyatt of Puerto Rico and Dorado Beach Hotel as
the proper defendants, and (3) transfer the case to the United
States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. The parties
also stipulated that plaintiffs would amend the complaint to assert
allegations against these new defendants within thirty days of the
transfer. The federal court in Pennsylvania approved the
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stipulation and transferred the case to the District Court of
Puerto Rico on March 15, 2000.
Notwithstanding the stipulation, nothing further
transpired until November 8, 2000, when the Puerto Rico district
court entered a scheduling order pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b).
The scheduling order required that motions to amend the pleadings
had to be filed by November 21, 2000, and that any late motions to
amend the pleadings would be allowed only upon a demonstration of
good cause for the delay. Plaintiffs did not move to amend the
complaint before the November 21, 2000 deadline expired. Because
plaintiffs did not amend the complaint, the complaint continued to
assert allegations only against the original defendants.
On April 4, 2001, Hyatt Corporation, one of the original
defendants, moved to dismiss the complaint on personal jurisdiction
grounds. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2). In response, plaintiffs
moved to amend their complaint to state allegations against the new
defendants. On March 20, 2002, the district court denied Hyatt
Corporation's motion to dismiss the complaint because the original
defendants already had been dismissed pursuant to the stipulation
entered prior to the case's transfer. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
41(a)(1)(ii). In the same order, the court denied plaintiffs'
motion to amend the complaint because, inter alia, plaintiffs had
flouted the scheduling order deadline and had "provided no
explanation whatsoever for the long delay." The court subsequently
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denied plaintiffs' motion to reconsider and entered judgment on
January 10, 2003. Plaintiffs have timely appealed.
We review the denial of a motion to amend the pleadings
for an abuse of discretion and will affirm if any adequate reason
for the denial is apparent from the record. See Acosta-Mestre v.
Hilton Int'l of P.R., 156 F.3d 49, 51 (1st Cir. 1998). In
contesting the district court's ruling, plaintiffs highlight the
liberal amendment policy underlying Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a),
contending that the denial of their motion was inconsistent with
the permissive bent of this Rule.
Rule 15(a) provides that leave to amend a complaint is
permitted, as a matter of course, before the opposing party has
filed a responsive pleading. Once a responsive pleading has been
filed, subsequent amendments require court approval, and such
approval is "freely given when justice so requires." See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 15(a). We have often described this standard as reflecting
the "liberal" amendment policy underlying Rule 15. See, e.g.,
Wilson v. Mendon, 294 F.3d 1, 7 n.16 (1st Cir. 2002); Mills v.
Maine, 118 F.3d 37, 53 (1st Cir. 1997); USM Corp. v. GKN Fasteners
Ltd., 578 F.2d 21, 23 (1st Cir. 1978).
Plaintiffs focus on Rule 15(a), emphasizing the Rule's
pro-amendment orientation. But plaintiffs have pinned their hopes
on the wrong rule. The standard applicable here is not the "freely
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given" Rule 15(a) standard but the more stringent "good cause"
standard under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b).
Rule 16(b) requires that the district court enter a
scheduling order within 120 days of service of the complaint. The
scheduling order sets the deadlines for subsequent proceedings in
the litigation, including amending the pleadings. See Fed. R. Civ.
P. 16(b)(1). The purpose of limiting the period for amending the
pleadings is to assure "that at some point both the parties and the
pleadings will be fixed." Advisory Committee Notes to the 1983
Amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b). The Rule does recognize,
however, that the parties will occasionally be unable to meet these
deadlines because scheduling order deadlines are established
relatively early in the litigation. See id. Therefore, the court
may extend a scheduling order deadline on a showing "of good cause
if the [deadline] cannot reasonably be met despite the diligence of
the party seeking the extension." Id.
Several courts have held that Rule 16(b)'s "good cause"
standard, rather than Rule 15(a)'s "freely given" standard, governs
motions to amend filed after scheduling order deadlines. See Leary
v. Daeschner, 349 F.3d 888, 906 (6th Cir. 2003); S&W Enters. v.
SouthTrust Bank of Ala., 315 F.3d 533, 536 (5th Cir. 2003); Parker
v. Columbia Pictures Indus., 204 F.3d 326, 340 (2d Cir. 2000); In
re Milk Prods. Antitrust Litig., 195 F.3d 430, 437-38 (8th Cir.
1999); Sosa v. Airprint Sys., Inc., 133 F.3d 1417, 1419 (11th Cir.
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1998) (per curiam); Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d
604, 608 (9th Cir. 1992); cf. Riofrio Anda v. Ralston Purina Co.,
959 F.2d 1149, 1154-55 (1st Cir. 1992) (affirming denial of motion
to amend filed after expiration of scheduling order deadline
because allowing amendment would be inconsistent with purposes of
Rule 16(b)). The rationale is that application of the "good cause"
standard preserves the integrity and effectiveness of Rule 16(b)
scheduling orders. See Sosa, 133 F.3d at 1419.
"In an era of burgeoning case loads and thronged dockets,
effective case management has become an essential tool for handling
civil litigation." Towers Ventures, Inc. v. Westfield, 296 F.3d
43, 45 (1st Cir. 2002). Rule 16 provides the district courts with
many of the devices necessary to manage its docket. See Rosario-
Diaz v. Gonzalez, 140 F.3d 312, 315 (1st Cir. 1998). For Rule
16(b) to operate effectively, litigants cannot be permitted to
treat a scheduling order as a "frivolous piece of paper idly
entered, which can be cavalierly disregarded without peril."
Johnson, 975 F.2d at 610 (internal citations and quotations
omitted). As we observed in Riofrio Anda, 959 F.2d at 1155,
liberally granting motions to amend the pleadings--filed after a
party has disregarded the scheduling order deadline--would
effectively "nullif[y] the purpose of Rule 16(b)(1)."
Unlike Rule 15(a)'s "freely given" standard, which
focuses mostly on the bad faith of the moving party and the
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prejudice to the opposing party, see Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178,
182 (1962), Rule 16(b)'s "good cause" standard emphasizes the
diligence of the party seeking the amendment. See Rosario-Diaz,
140 F.3d at 315; accord Leary, 349 F.3d at 906; Parker, 204 F.3d at
340. Prejudice to the opposing party remains relevant but is not
the dominant criterion. See Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609.
"[I]ndifference" by the moving party "seal[s] off this avenue of
relief" irrespective of prejudice because such conduct is
incompatible with the showing of diligence necessary to establish
good cause. Rosario-Diaz, 140 F.3d at 315. We review the district
court's refusal to extend a Rule 16(b) scheduling order for good
cause under an abuse of discretion standard. See Vulcan Tools of
P.R. v. Makita U.S.A., Inc., 23 F.3d 564, 565 (1st Cir. 1994).
Plaintiffs suggest that, "due to circumstances not within
[their] control . . . the amended Civil Action was never filed by
the filing deadline." While plaintiffs are not altogether clear
on what stopped them from timely moving to amend, they appear to
blame the error on a failure of communication between local counsel
in Puerto Rico and lead counsel in Pennsylvania. Under the facts
of this case, this excuse does not establish good cause. Cf.
Rosario-Diaz, 140 F.3d at 315 ("Attorneys represent clients, and,
as a general rule, an attorney's blunder binds her client.").
Plaintiffs stipulated that they would seek to amend the
complaint to include allegations against the new defendants within
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thirty days of the transfer. Plaintiffs were thus aware of their
obligation to move to amend. Nevertheless, they waited over a year
after the transfer and five months after the scheduling order
deadline to act. Such a long and unexplained delay vindicates the
district court's conclusion that plaintiffs were not diligently
pursuing this litigation. See, e.g., Leary, 349 F.3d at 908
(affirming district court's refusal to find good cause where
plaintiff was "obviously aware of the claim for many months" but
failed to move to amend the complaint until defendant moved for
summary judgment); Sosa, 133 F.3d at 1419 (affirming district
court's refusal to find good cause where "information supporting
the proposed amendment to the complaint was available [to
plaintiff] even before she filed suit"); Johnson, 975 F.2d at 609
(affirming district court's refusal to find good cause where
plaintiff knew that it had named the wrong party but failed to
amend complaint within the scheduling order deadline).
Affirmed.
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